"Indian Government ochestrated Parliament, 26/11 Mumbai Attacks", Former Indian Home Ministry Officer

NEW DELHI: A former home ministry
officer has revealed that Indian government orchestrated the terror
attacks on Parliament and the Mumbai’s 26/11 massacre.

R V S Mani, who as home ministry
under-secretary signed the affidavits submitted in court in the alleged
encounter case, has said that Satish Verma, until recently a part of the
CBI-SIT probe team, told him that both the terror attacks were set up
“with the objective of strengthening the counter-terror legislation
(sic)”.

Mani has said that Verma “…narrated that
the 13.12. 2001(attack on Parliament) was followed by Pota (Prevention
of Terrorist Activities Act) and 26/11 2008 (terrorists’ siege of
Mumbai) was followed by amendment to the UAPA (Unlawful Activities
Prevention Act).”

The official has alleged Verma levelled
the damaging charge while debunking IB’s inputs labelling the three
killed with Ishrat in the June 2004 encounter as Lashkar terrorists.

In what is certain to escalate the
already vicious fight between the CBI and the IB over the Ishrat Jahan
“fake encounter case”, a former home ministry officer has alleged that a
member of the CBI-SIT team had accused incumbent governments of
“orchestrating” the terror attack on Parliament and the 26/11 carnage in
Mumbai.

Contacted by TOI, Verma refused to
comment. “I don’t know what the complaint is, made when and to whom. Nor
am I interested in knowing. I cannot speak to the media on such
matters. Ask the CBI,” said the Gujarat cadre IPS officer who after
being relieved from the SIT is working as principal of the Junagadh
Police Training College.

Mani, currently posted as deputy land
and development officer in the urban development ministry, has written
to his seniors that he retorted to Verma’s comments telling the IPS
officer that he was articulating the views of Pakistani intelligence
agency ISI.

Indian Parliament Attack 2001.

According to him, the charge was
levelled by Verma in Gandhinagar on June 22 while questioning Mani about
the two home ministry affidavits in the alleged encounter case.

In his letter to the joint secretary in
the urban development ministry, Mani has accused Verma of “coercing” him
into signing a statement that is at odds with facts as he knew them.

He said Verma wanted him to sign a
statement saying that the home ministry’s first affidavit in the Ishrat
case was drafted by two IB officers. “Knowing fully well that this would
tantamount to falsely indicting of (sic) my seniors at the extant time,
I declined to sign any statement.”

Giving the context in which Verma
allegedly levelled the serious charge against the government, Mani said
the IPS officer, while questioning him, had raised doubts about the
genuineness of IB’s counter-terror intelligence.

He disputed the veracity of the input on
the antecedents of the three killed in June 2004 on the outskirts of
Ahmedabad with Ishrat in the alleged encounter which has since become a
polarizing issue while fuelling Congress’s fight with Gujarat CM
Narendra Modi.

Gujarat Police has justified the
encounter citing the IB report that Pakistani nationals Zeeshan Zohar,
Amzad Ali Rana and Javed Sheikh were part of a Lashkar module which had
reached Gujarat to target Modi and carry out terrorist attacks.

In its first affidavit, filed in August
2009, the home ministry had cited IB inputs that those killed with
Ishrat in the alleged encounter were part of a Lashkar sleeper cell, and
had objected to a CBI probe into the “encounter”.

In its second affidavit, filed in
September 2009, the home ministry, irked by the Gujarat government
treating the first affidavit as justification of the encounter, said the
IB input did not constitute conclusive proof of the terrorist
antecedents of those killed. It supported the demand for a CBI probe.

Mani said Verma doubted the input saying
MHA’s first affidavit was actually drafted by IB officer Rajinder
Kumar, who looked after IB’s operations in Gujarat at the time of Ishrat
“encounter” and now runs the serious risk of being chargesheeted by the
CBI for hatching the conspiracy behind the alleged extra-judicial
killings.

R V S Mani said that Verma stuck to his guns even after being told that the home ministry did not need outside help. Moreover, the former home ministry official claimed Verma insisted that the “input” was prepared after the encounter.